Taste, Test, Trust is a model for a 3 step process that is also spontaneous in our action/reflection in the moment. Taste is the initial experimentation that is unfamiliar at this point. Test is the beginning of the means being familiar and you are also noticing adaptation and change that aligns with what you hoped was possible. Trust is familiarity with the means, a change in your habitual experience, and a commitment to living like this. Trust is reliable, consistent, available and present.
I asked Jules to write something about our time together, because he has been so fast and effective at learning that the nature of experience is the ‘teacher’
As you will see from the material below, Jules was coming from behind the 8 ball, and I have seen this time and time again. We feel like we have exhausted all the conventional channels, yet we know intuitively, there is so much more possible, we dig deep and give our all to the exploration.
Jules is excellent at sharing what he has been working on and detailing his experiences. This allows me to shape the experiments that we do, so that he can dive deeper or change gears in his exploration.
My time with Mark McGrath has been nothing short of a life changing. After years of working with multiple experts, across a range of disciplines, no one has gifted me the kind of transformational opportunities that I’ve seen with Mark.
I now exercise and move with a truer sense of alignment, aware of so much more of my body. I now meditate with a deeper, more connected, graceful perspective. Professionally, I feel more comfortable to take risks and back my instincts. And perhaps most powerfully, as an artist and musician, I’ve broken through a type of ceiling where expression and creativity are so much more accessible.
Like all great teachers, Mark shows you the door to your true potential.
From as early as I can remember, I only ever found movement and exercise difficult and painful. Take running for example, it just hurt so badly; pain in my knees, shins, ankles, feet, basically all over. So, the exercise strategy I adopted as a kid stayed fairly consistent for a long time; avoid it.
As you’d expect, the PE teachers called me lazy and that’s a tagline I integrated into my self-commentary. While I always knew there was some ambiguous effect making me less capable than others, I couldn’t help but feel like my lack of application or unwillingness to ‘push through the pain’ was what was stopping me from progressing.
Later in life, I would run into severe – unrelated – health issues, at one point, stuck bedridden for 6 months. After an eventual recovery, my posture and movement patterns were at an unbearable point. I’d avoiding running for a long a time, but now I couldn’t even sit at a desk or go for a walk without debilitating back pain. It had to be addressed.
And so my journey of ‘physical rehab’ began. I saw personal trainers, a number of physiotherapists, did private yoga classes, saw an osteopath, a podiatrist, did it all. This lasted for 3 years before meeting Mark. Each of these professionals contributed positively and helped me move past chronic pain. Despite this though, I never really felt like I understood my body. The gains felt isolated and relatively superficial. I’d learnt to activate my glutes, but still couldn’t run pain free. Years of private pilates, and I still couldn’t squat properly. I knew I was missing a key piece of the puzzle and in the end, Mark would lead me to finding it.
If I could summarise the distinction between working with Mark and other professionals, it would be this; others have you practice effective movement, Mark teaches you to understand the innate effective movement inside of you.
In just one session, I saw deeper improvements than I did in 3 years of paid professional work. How is that possible? Because operating inside Mark’s framework is just fundamentally different, they’re not comparable gains. Strengthening a muscle is one thing, gaining an insight into the global functioning of your body – that’s something completely separate.